Created in Birmingham

Merry Christmas from one and all at Created in Birmingham!

To be honest, I’d be surprised if anyone is reading this (and to be even more honest, I wrote this a few days back anyway) but, in case it’s timely, here are a few things on TV that you might be interested in today:

• Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella, BBC2 at 3pm
• Best of European Opera 2010 (ft Birmingham Opera Company’s Othello), BBC4 at 7pm

Screen WM have done a round-up of the festive stuff they’ve been involved in, including The Brothers McLeod’s The Moon Bird (Christmas Day, 12.40am on Channel 4 – oh, bit late for that, sorry), the new series of Upstairs Downstairs (Boxing Day, 9pm on BBC 1), Toast (30 December, 9pm on BBC 1) and, later on in January, the return of Hustle.

If you’ve got some vouchers burning a hole in your pocket then Soulboy and Nativity are out on DVD.

On the radio side of things, Robin Valk’s Handsworth Evolution will be played on 30 December on BBC WM.

I’ve not been paying a great deal to Rhubarb Radio over the past little while, other than my usual subscription to Brumcast which drops into my iTunes on a weekly basis.

I hadn’t realised they were in any sort of trouble until I read Robin Valk’s post:

Last month, there was more bad news. Like many community stations, the eccentric but occasionally quite wonderful Rhubarb Radio is feeling the cold winds of recession. The current managerial team is bailing out; an intensive effort is being mounted to build a new and solid structure for the continued existence of the station.

The campaign to shore up Rhubarb Radio is being coordinated, from what I can tell, by some of the current DJs and contributors via a ‘Save Rhubarb Radio’ Facebook page. There have been a few meetings to work out what’s going to happen and things seen to be picking up pace, which is good.

However, from flicking through the FB page, there seems to be a short-term financial hurdle to be overcome. It looks like (put some clear info up somewhere you guys!) they’re need £600 sharpish and are after a few people to chip in £20. There’s a donate button on the Rhubarb Radio website.

There’s also a meeting at the Custard Factory tonight if you want to help out in any way, that’s at 7pm in the Orwell Room.

Robin Valk has been busy recording and putting together this radio documentary for Birmingham Music Heritage, featuring musicians such as UB40 who he worked with back in local radio, along with the likes of Andy Hamilton and Apache Indian.

It’s all there – the story of how the children of those early post-war immigrants came up with a vital new approach to reggae, mixed, matched and mashed up… and invented whole new styles of music along the way.

Here’s part 1 of the Handsworth Evolution documentary:

Handsworth Evolution Part 1 by Radio To Go

Listen to parts 2 & 3 over on Radio to Go.

• Best Believe – Inclusion Inspires
  “a free conference delivered by MusicLeader West Midlands, Youth Music and Symphony Hall on Monday 16th November”
• Loaf Needs YOU! :: Loaf Online
  Tom wants to ‘kickstart a social movement around local food in Birmingham’. Get in touch with him if that sounds like fun
• Ego Theatre and ITV Fixers
  “Leminc has collaborated with ITV Fixers on a unique journey to find nothing but the very BEST of birmingham’s raw, artistic talent. (Actors, Dancers, Singers, Poets, Rappers, Entertainers and any other innnovative production) in order to create a powerful, innovative Musical Theatre with purpose”. At the Library Theatre, 7 Nov
• Game Central / Previous Meetings
  Minutes from the first meeting of the new get-together for West Mids games people
• The criteria for Arts Council England regular funding | Arts Council
  “We have a strategy for the arts which underpins our decisions about funding for individual organisations. This document aims to describe the framework we use in making these decisions”
• Outside IN commissioning leading disabled artists – Audiences Central
  “Outside IN is commissioning new work from three of the UK’s leading Disabled Artists for inclusion in three mainstream galleries in the West Midlands and Welsh Borders from 2010 to 2011″
• Robin Valk – UB40: Live, Loud and Local
  Andrew Dubber interviews Robin Valk
• shona mcquillan
  Artist Shona McQuillan has revamped her site and now has some prints for purchasing
• Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre sold to ATG in £90m deal
  The Ambassador Theatre Group have bought the Alex from Live Nation (along with 15 other venues around the country). No great changes planned, according interviews with folks involved, other than to reduce the amount of time it stands idle – currently around 16 weeks a year

• Knight of the Camera: The Photographs of Sir Benjamin Stone MP
  The photos on display in Centenary Square at the moment are by Sir Benjamin Stone MP, an enthusiastic amateur photographer. This is the first time in a century that his work has been shown in Birmingham, his home town
• The Shambala Art Exhibition – Birmingham – The Final Show! at Jibbering Art
  The exhibition moves to Birmingham from Friday 10th – Friday 17th October @ Wild Building, 104 – 108 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 5SJ, 10.30am – 6.30pm. The launch night is Thurs 9 October, 7pm – 11pm – expect live art, afrika jam dj’s and more
• Overcoming Dictatorships
  This is the blog for “a two-year exchange between artists, poets and authors from various European countries about their experiences of the change from dictatorship to democracy, in particular after the opening of former communist countries since the end of the 1980s”. There’s a round table discussion at the Ikon on 8 Oct and a conference at Birmingham Uni on 9 Oct (with an exhibition there going on until 9 Nov)
• The Traditional Arts Team are having a ceilidh on Sat 18 Oct
  Apparently this is “part of the Big National Ceilidh – a night when, in cities, towns and villages all over the country, thousands of people will simultaneously be dancing to the music of live bands”
• Local Radio – where is the good news?
  Robin Valk muses on the state of local radio, specifically wondering (with advertising cuts likely and the cost of ‘old school radio’) whether it has any future
• Television’s People Out Today! – Mistys Big Adventure
  Grandmaster Gareth has been suffering. The new Mistys album is out today though, so things should start looking up